


Into the City of Woe

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Demon Blood Addict Sam Winchester, Demon Dean Winchester, Gladiators, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:50:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10591536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: The champion's name is Sam, and sitting high upon his throne, Dean hates him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of 2015 [spn_reversebang](http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com/) originally posted [here](http://infatuated-ink.livejournal.com/94804.html). Inspired by art by [uh_tiramisu](http://uh-tiramisu.livejournal.com/) which can be viewed [here](http://uh-tiramisu.livejournal.com/4469.html).

It's quite a show.

The blood sprays up so high it almost reaches the spectators. Not Dean, not all the way up to where Dean is. But higher than he's ever seen it go.

His strongest minotaur collapses into blood-soaked sand, ten feet tall and as solid as the walls of Dean's palace. The entire coliseum shakes when the beast hits the ground, and there's stunned silence in the wake of it.

He almost wishes he were closer. Placement is key in these things. It's a sign of status, the lower down, the nearer to the fighting, the less you are. Dean sits above everyone, emperor on his throne, all powerful, beyond rebuke, servants circling to anticipate his every whim, bringing him delicacies on platters.

But he would almost trade it all to be down in the front, close enough for the blood to splatter up and sully his pristine white robe. Close enough for it to sprinkle into his dark red wine so he can taste the victory. He wants to see the gladiator's muscles strain as he fights against impossible odds, see the fire in those eyes as he takes apart all of Dean's best monsters.

It's always quite the show when this one is in the ring.

This fighter is nothing, lower than the lowest of Dean's subjects. Just a gladiator, fodder to feed the beasts, and he's doing it all wrong. He keeps winning. He keeps being better than the horrors Dean throws at him. The man's name is Sam, and sitting high upon his throne, Dean hates him.

The champion lifts his hand to signal his win, long sword dripping ruby red down his arm. He doesn't care, of course. He's covered head to toe in blood, most of it his own. Dean's fingers curl, itching for the same. Sometimes, being emperor is entirely too clean for his taste.

The crowd cheers. Sam gives them hope, even though it's too late for them. By the time you're in the crowd, it's too late. You've already lost. You're supposed to cheer for the monsters by the time you're in the crowd. Before the fight, and after it, Dean sneers at their foolishness. Yet when the match is in full swing, when the tension is high and every moment seems suspended in time, when it's Sam or the monster, Dean finds himself holding his breath.

It's glee that fills him when Sam inevitably comes out on top, first instinct and stronger than the disappointment that comes next. He doesn't know what it is about this one. This insignificant insect. He worries sometimes when it looks like Sam won't win. His heart gets stuck in his throat. It makes him angry, but he can't shake it. A feeling this strong—it has to be hate. Dean hates him more than he's ever hated anyone, and that's saying something.

"How many is this now?" he asks, taking a sip from his wine and wearing a mask of indifference.

Beside him, Jezebel gives a half-smirk, one that says she knows Dean is full of shit and isn't afraid to let him see that she knows. But she plays her role in public, and that's how she's lived as long as she has. Dean likes her, she's smart, she makes a good lieutenant, and she's not too proud to play a minion when other eyes are on them.

"That's his seventh," she says. "He's quite magnificent, isn't he? No one else ever made it past four."

"Yes," Dean agrees, taking a grape from the servant next to him and shrugging. "Well, he's certainly a gifted fighter. He makes for much more momentous matches."

Jezebel nods and looks back out to the arena. Sam has dropped his sword now and is being surrounded by guards, put back in his chains. He always submits without a struggle, and that's strange, too. If he made a break for it, Sam could take out at least a third of the guards on the ground before they could restrain him. Instead he holds his wrists out, looking bored as the shackles clamp shut around them. Dean isn't used to seeing killers go quietly.

"Do you think he'll manage it?" Jezebel asks, genuine curiosity in her voice. "Nine wins?"

They learned long ago that their new slaves need a little motivation to make the game worth playing. So they promise salvation. Freedom to any gladiator who can live through nine fights. Of course, it's futile. Dean has creatures these weak little souls could never imagine, all at his beck and call. Starved until they're released into the ring, hungry and restless. 

He had good intentions, when they made the rules, to play by them. Release anyone who gets to nine—they'd certainly have earned it. It was easy to be magnanimous when no one was ever going to come close.

Dean snickers at the implication that Sam might win and flicks his grape off the balcony, watching as it hits one of the spectators below. "I'd hate to think what will happen to him if he does."

There's a moment of quiet before Jezebel looks over at him, her gaze questioning. Then her eyes go black, and she grins with all her sharp teeth. "Hell's a much more interesting place since you took over."

_______________________________________________________________

There are eight demons in the ring today, to celebrate Sam's eighth fight. Fierce sons of bitches all, old and strong and sadistic. Impossible for one man to overcome.

See, Dean has figured it out now. He's been playing this wrong the whole time. Monsters are good for scaring novices, they can crush nearly anyone, but they're just hungry. Mindless, running on instinct. Predictable. Dean was never going to beat Sam with a monster. Sam is smart, skilled, and fast. He may be small next to Dean's great beasts, but he's strong enough to last until he can use his knowledge to overcome them.

Demons are smart, too. Not as flashy as minotaurs or Cerberus or Geryon or any of the other beloved nightmares Sam has slaughtered. They don't make for as good of a show. But they're stronger than Sam, chaotic and unknowable, and much, much more creative. Eight of them, eight at once. There's no way some puny human soul will overcome that.

Sam has been given a knife this time. Not a sword or harpoon or ax, just a sad little dagger. No shield except for the red leather strap and shoulder plate, his bare chest showing the scars of his past victories.

Dean feels a hunger like he's never known when the gladiator steps into the ring, his skin tan from all this fighting in the sweltering Hell heat, every muscle defined thanks to the constant combat. Dean needs to see him dead. He has a lust for Sam's blood that follows him no matter how he tries to ignore it.

That's all it is. He just needs Sam to be defeated, and then the rest of it will go away.

The demons don't even wait until the gladiator has been unchained to descend. They've been promised the same thing Sam has, a much better motivator than the meal the monsters were striving for. A way out of Hell, freedom to roam in the land of the living, to whoever takes Sam's pretty head off his sturdy shoulders.

It's bad news for the ones that got overeager. They're so intent on jumping Sam that they don't see that little blade flashing. Two demons in male meatsuits: one with black hair, the other blond. Blondie's neck is open so fast Dean hardly sees it happen, and the other guy has the knife through his eye not long after.

That's a quarter of Dean's demons wasted in under a minute. His grip on his wine glass tightens until the chalice shatters, spilling liquid on Dean's olive green robes, but he couldn't care less. He won't tear his eyes away from the fight long enough to see to it.

An acheri comes next, sweet little girl in a bright pink dress, her nails set to rip Sam's eyes out. Dean has an absurd thought for a moment: that she can't do it, because he's never been close enough to see Sam's eyes, and he can't let Sam die without knowing them.

It's a welcome distraction when Sam swings his chains at her. Testing to see if they're iron, Dean would bet. Of course they're not; his demons could never handle them if they were. But it's a good thought, and while it doesn't dissipate the demon, the metal strikes her hard enough to throw her off her feet.

Sam does the last thing in the world Dean expects. He bends over, puts his hands over the cut on the first demon's throat, and gets them covered in blood. Then he stands, wraps those long fingers around his own neck, and when he pulls them away, the acheri screeches.

A red ribbon around your neck, that's how you keep an acheri demon at bay. Sam knew. How the hell does Sam know just how to fight everything Dean throws at him?

Furious that she can no longer touch Sam, the girl lashes out at one of the demons nearest to her instead, and they fight until Sam comes up behind, buries his knife in the back of the demon she's grappling with, then the little girl.

That's half. Half of them down, and Sam hasn't even had to try yet. He grabs one of the bodies and throws it, tripping up the demons advancing on him, then takes a step back, clearly looking from one to the other, trying to assess which to take down next.

His luck has run out. The remaining demons finally understand what they're up against, and they band together, creating a barrier in front of Sam. Backing him up against the arena wall.

Sam looks up, like he's trying to determine if he can climb his way out, but that's as hopeless as trying to climb out of Hell. Dean didn't build a prison you could save yourself from.

As he's scrambling to find an escape, staring up at the wall and the rows and rows of gaping demons yelling for his death, Sam's eyes meet Dean's. It was bound to happen; Dean hasn't taken his gaze off of Sam since the fight started, tracking him as if compelled by witchcraft. But, oh. Dean should have known better than to let this happen.

Sam's eyes, they're unknowable, even when he's staring directly into them. He's too high up and he can't pin down a color. He wants them closer. Wants them on him. Wants to learn every shade they can shift into.

They're wide now with terror, but more than that, they look relieved. His gaze is fixed on Dean, like he expects mercy to rain down from the emperor's throne. Or maybe like he knows there's no mercy to be had, as if Sam recognizes he's dead meat and this is what he wants to be looking at when it happens.

Two of the demons are close enough to touch now, and they reach out. Pull Sam closer. He didn't even see them coming, too busy staring up. He's going to die, and it's all Dean's fault.

That's what he wanted, he reminds himself. He wants Sam dead. He hates Sam. Everything will be better once Sam's intestines are on his dinner table. Everything will go back to the way it was before: simple and straightforward, bloody and fun, uncomplicated and unfeeling.

Sam punches the demon on his right, but the one on his left grabs his other hand, twists it until the dagger drops into the sand at their feet. Such a little blade he gave Sam for this. It wasn't fair.

"Looks like our champion is finally going to get what he deserves," Jezebel says from beside him. She's got the spark in her eye she always does when she can sense something about to die. The moment before an orgasm, that's what it reminds Dean of. "I've gotta say, I think I'll miss him. Boy sure knew how to put on a fight."

"I wish they would just do it already," Dean growls, twisting his robe in his hand.

Despite appearances, the fight isn't over yet. Sam jerks his elbow back, hard enough that the demon holding him rears away, clutching its face. He kicks another, and tries to bend over to grab the knife. He won't have time. The demons will tear him apart before he can stand again.

He only needs a few seconds. If something could just buy him those few, impossible seconds, Sam would have a fighting chance.

Dean grips the arms of his chair too hard, closes his eyes and turns his face away. Then he realizes what he's doing, all these things he's thinking. Just because some little human soul is going to die, same as thousands have on Dean's watch.

This one is no different. He'll die in the arena, and he'll go where all those other souls have gone. Right onto the rack. A few centuries of torture and Sam will make a magnificent demon. Dean _wants_ this to happen. Maybe he'll make an exception to protocol, let Sam become his special project and be the one to torture all the good out of him. Dean was a master at that once, before he was king. He could turn Sam in half the time a regular soul takes. There's already so much potential.

He uses those fantasies to calm himself and forces his eyes open, ashamed by his moment of weakness. Sam is still grabbing for the knife. One of the demons behind him has taken its true form. It'll swallow him in darkness in just a few—

Everything stops. For several seconds, the demons freeze, both in the pit and the rows of spectators surrounding it. Nothing moves, except for Dean and Sam.

There are rules against this. Tampering with the fights, especially using powers to help someone in the ring. Dean has personally supervised the torture of the demons who have even tried it in the past, made sure they suffered worse than anyone in Hell.

He feels fury bubble up inside him now. Begins a blueprint of the torment he will inflict when he finds the demon who is ruining this fight for him. Then, in increments, things start to move again. Sam grasps the blade, slices up at the black cloud of smoke behind him as he stands. It breaks up, scattered to the wind. Toast.

Everything slams back into motion in the same moment, Sam hitting the nearest demon, the crowd cheering wildly.

No one else noticed what happened in that strange minute of calm, and Dean realizes with horror that it was him. He saved Sam. It had been instinct, he hadn't even noticed until he came back to himself, his fingers rippling with the power he just used.

First one, then another demon falls at Sam's hand, but Dean doesn't care about the fight anymore. It's clear how it will go. 

He snaps and a demon appears, standing at his side in moments. "I want to know what he did. I want to know how he got here. What made him sell his soul and who held his contract? I want to know everything."

"Of course, my lord," the demon says, bowing idiotically. Dean lashes out at it, and it cringes back, clutching at whatever he managed to rip open in his attack.

"I can save you some time," Jezebel tells him. "I looked into him myself."

"And?" Dean demands, his ever-black eyes turning on her.

"It's…odd," she begins.

Dean curls his hand into a fist, squeezing until she's choking. "Get on with it."

"He didn't make a deal!" she gasps. "We don't have a contract on him."

Dean releases her, feeling his whole body begin to surge with joy. "He's a sinner. He's here because he's a sinner."

Yes, Sam will make something of himself in Hell. A soul this skilled _and_ naturally damned is…promising, to say nothing of Dean's own personal plans for him.

"Well, no, not really." Jezebel holds her hands out, trying to block Dean's attack before he can make one, but he's not bothering. He wants to hear what she has to say. "He isn't dead at all."

Dean can feel his face twisting in confusion. "Why is he here then?"

She shakes her head. "He just showed up, that's what the senators said. They said he showed up a few days before his first fight and claimed he belonged in the arena. So they threw him into it. A human soul, with one of their weak sacks of flesh to boot? They all thought he would be dead in seconds, no harm done."

"No one thought to tell me this?" Dean asks.

"We've never had someone volunteer for Hell. It was a free soul. They didn’t think to argue with it."

"Someone snuck into my kingdom. And you thought it was okay not to question it?" Dean lashes out with fire, striking one of his servants dead. "I saw to it personally that this was not possible."

"It isn't," Jezebel assures him. "All the reapers are running scared. They're walking the line, no one would dare smuggle a soul in or out."

"So he knew how to get in on his own," Dean says. "Is that what you're trying to tell me? He came by because the fighting would just be so enjoyable?"

Jezebel licks her lips, turns her black eyes away from Dean's. "We thought you let him in, my lord."

"Why would I have welcomed some human into my kingdom?"

She lifts her head, almost defiant, and holds Dean's gaze this time. "When we checked his soul for a contract, we didn't find one. But we found who he belongs to."

Dean sits back, shaking his head, trying to understand how those things could be related. "He…?"

The demon swallows hard and nods. "That soul is already yours. We thought you had a contract of your own, and I was not about to come demanding that you produce it."

Below him, the arena erupts into shouts and applause. Sam has just killed the last demon. Victorious again. "Eight wins out of nine," the onlookers are crying. "He'll make it out!"

He'll never make it out, Dean knows that now. His hands curl into fists as he thinks, _he's mine_.

It's a mystery not worth unraveling, that's what Dean decides. How Sam got here or why, who he is, these are details and details lead to sympathy, caring. Above all, they lead to weakness.

That's how Crowley fell: too interested in the specifics, soul all tangled up with its human ambiguities. Crowley was a serviceable king once, but he had his fondnesses. He had a very real love for the demons that he believed served him loyally, with Dean his personal favorite.

Now Dean rules Hell and Crowley's charred bones hang on his wall for decoration.

What he does know is enough; let unsolved mysteries distract a lesser ruler. 

Today is a special fight, and Dean has welcomed every soul in Hell to the festivities, even the ones on the racks, only half twisted and still too squeamish for the bloodbath they'll be seeing. Dean has a new toy to play with, and he'll be letting it loose. There won't be a gladiator left standing by the end of today.

All of his best pets came to him as presents, from some demon or former deity trying to stay in his good graces. He hasn't made a secret of his fondness for beasts, for new monstrosities to try out in the coliseum, but he will confess, this one was the most thoughtful.

Dean thought Sam was just another soul. Just another gladiator. Now everything is clear to him. Sam isn't the gladiator, he's the monster. He's Dean's most terrifying weapon.

True, there isn't much to him on first glance. That's how things got so confused, but it's also what makes Sam so special. The fighters will think they're catching a break when they see what they'll be up against. But Dean's new pet is going to tear them to shreds.

First, they let three men out into the arena. These are good fighters, each having won three matches on their own, and hand selected by Dean because their fighting styles all have different strengths. They'll be working together, blending all that talent against one enemy, and if they win, that's it. They go free, all three of them, back to their sick wives or mansions or whatever they sold their souls for ten years ago. One more fight instead of six. It's a hell of a motivator.

Of course, they have no chance at beating Sam. But Dean is eager to watch them try.

Sam thinks he's still in their shoes, that they're all fighting each other, and if he wins this battle, that's his ninth and he can go back to the Earth he abandoned to come fight in Hell. As if Dean would ever give up a creature stronger than dragons and hellhounds, wendigos and minotaurs, demons and even the angel Dean managed to capture and keep caged long enough to throw it into a match.

When they see him being led into the arena, the three gladiators look around at each other, clearly confused. They must have been expecting a behemoth considering the terms of the combat. And that's just what they’ll get.

As soon as Sam is off his chain, the three men band together, waiting until they're alone in the ring to circle. They each have long swords and thick armor, while Sam stands in the center of their attack, his shoulders hunched, with nothing but his bare hands and less cover than a bed slave would wear.

He doesn't seem afraid, but the anger and aggression Dean was hoping for isn't there, either. He's just standing, waiting for the gladiators to pounce.

It's not long before one does. He looks to his teammates and Dean sees them nod, realizes they rehearsed this in advance. Good. Let Sam finally see an animal as well-prepared as himself. They were forbidden from practicing, but Dean has always respected a little cheating in healthy doses. It won't help them, but it may even the odds a bit, make this fight more exciting.

If one survives, Dean will discipline him for ignoring the terms, but he already knows no one is walking away from this ring except the hunted animal the gladiator is driving his sword toward.

Sam swerves so that the sword runs in front of him, kicks the man's feet out from under. He nearly follows his enemy down, trying to take the weapon, but both of the other men seize him and pull him off. They swing at him, but their movements are slowed by their armor, and Sam in nothing but his skin is faster than all six of their arms can grasp.

He reels around one of the men and catches his shield, pulling the heavy metal back at an angle that makes the gladiator cry out in pain. As soon as Sam lets him go, the guy falls over, his arm clearly broken and unable to stand the weight of the shield.

Sam is there to catch him, punching him hard in the face repeatedly, until the man's head drops, unconscious. Instead of grabbing for his sword, Sam tears the straps of the shield, managing to rip it away and lift it over himself just in time to catch a blow from one of the other fighters.

The guy stands there, trying to find an angle he can drive his sword through, until Sam launches himself forward, using the shield to knock his attacker's legs. The guy falls onto his back, and Sam climbs up, kicking the sword away first, then the enemy. He even looks like he's enjoying himself, but he only gets two or three good kicks in before the third gladiator is running toward him.

Sam hears him coming, swings the shield out so that it strikes a powerful blow to his opponent. But as he turns his attention to the last man standing, Dean sees the second gladiator begin to crawl toward his discarded sword. Sam is distracted by the third fighter; he seems to have ruled out the other two entirely.

The gladiator Sam is fighting is smaller than him, a man much more skilled in hand-to-hand combat than swords. He's no idiot, either. Half a minute up against Sam and that shield, trying to make his sword hit home, and he tosses the thing to the ground along with his protection, allowing himself to match Sam in speed.

Sam pushes the shield at him, so the gladiator stumbles back, but he's lithe, able to find his feet and spring up onto them before Sam reaches him. The two fight and fight well when they finally reach each other, no weapons or armor, just bare animal instinct and adrenaline.

They put on a hell of a show, but Dean watches tensely as the man Sam had left on the ground finally makes it to his sword and stumbles to his feet. He limps across the arena, slow but steady, and when he's right behind Sam, he raises the weapon, ready to plunge it in and end this for good.

Dean had assumed Sam didn't know the second gladiator had risen from the way he's stayed focused on his fight with the last standing competitor, but just as the knife should plunge into his back, Sam turns, taking the man he's fighting for a spin as if they were dancing.

The sword ends up buried in his opponent's back, leaving only the first unconscious gladiator and the badly beaten one who is blinking at his sword and his dead teammate as if he still hasn't caught on to what happened.

Sam doesn't waste his time. He punches the last gladiator and grabs him by the collar, repeating the hit until the man sinks to his knees, signaling surrender. Sam pushes him to the ground and turns toward the senators in the stadium, raising his arm to signal his victory.

"But they're still alive," Dean says, sitting forward. "Tell the senators to announce that this was a fight to the death. He needs to kill the last two."

Jezebel leaves to see that Dean's orders are carried out, and the crowd waits in a buzz of confused noise until finally she comes back up, a lost look on her face.

"My lord, he says he's won. He says he won’t kill a human soul needlessly."

"The man will kill an angel without blinking but for some low little human he wants to show mercy?" Dean laughs. " _Mercy?_ Does he know where he is?"

She shrugs. "I'm just telling you what he said."

Dean sits back on his throne, feeling annoyance tickle at him. Mercy is the very heart of weakness. What good is a weak monster? He hasn't kept Sam for his heart.

"Make it clear the fight will not end until they are dead."

He watches her go and smiles to himself, suddenly overjoyed, maybe even relieved. He'd thought Sam was something else, something that might challenge him. But Sam is frail. Dean has been waiting for Sam to show weakness as long as the man has been fighting in the game. And finally whatever hold Sam had that made Dean take an interest in him has dissolved.

Sam isn't the devil Dean thought he was. As it turns out, this is just a human soul after all. Nothing worth noting about him.

Still, there's something to be said for tenacity. When Jezebel walks out into the arena, wearing her true form, Sam doesn't flinch in the face of it. He spits blood at her feet when she tells him the terms Dean sent.

The gladiator who had surrendered is told the same thing Sam was. At first he looks sick over it, terrified when he glances in Sam's direction. But Sam is watching him with a complete lack of interest, and it's clear he doesn't plan to attack.

So the guy takes the sword up again and walks his way to Sam, taking a sorry swing before turning the handle toward Sam, offering it to him. Sam won, fair and square, and the gladiator is telling him to just put him down already. End this.

Sam shakes his head, pushing the blade away. He turns toward the stadium, raising his arms in victory again, and the crowd cheers for Dean to let him have it. He won, and they have chosen him for their champion.

Then the gladiator's face changes. He sees an opening, and despite Sam's kindness in allowing him to live, he takes it.

He lunges forward while Sam's back is still turned to him, and Dean's entire body feels as if it's become ice. He has a strange feeling that this has all happened before: the fight to the death, Sam winning, refusing to kill, the betrayal, and a knife through Sam's spine. It feels so real that Dean can almost see it: Sam walking just far enough to fall into his arms, cradling that body as they kneeled in mud. Sam dying. Sam dying and Dean not being able to stop it.

The vision is horrendous, more than Dean can bear. He raises his arms to his head, trying to block whatever it is—a memory or a premonition, he isn't sure. He tears at his hair, hisses, feels his body shifting between his true form and the human vessel he so rarely bothers with in Hell. He can't stop this. It's going to happen again.

Dean is on his feet in seconds, and the gladiator behind Sam splatters in every direction. Sam's expression twists in confusion, until he turns to see the sword, sitting in a pile of liquefied organs. Then he raises his head up, looking toward Dean. He's smiling. It's a bright, beautiful, little boy's smile. Like Dean is his hero.

"What happened?" Jezebel asks urgently as soon as she reaches Dean. It's clear she ran all the way up the coliseum's stairs to reach him. "You killed the gladiator? He was about to end the fight!"

Nodding, Dean leans over the railing, looking down at the arena. Sam is standing there, and aside from a corpse and a puddle of what used to be a person, the only other soul is still knocked out, right where Sam left him at the start of the fight.

"I wasn't about to watch my best fighter fall to some puny human soul just because of mercy," Dean says. "If he's going to die, it'll be at more worthy hands."

"Nothing else can kill him," says Jezebel. "This one only had a chance because Sam let him."

"There's still one thing we haven't made him fight." Dean lifts his head, meets her questioning gaze. "He's mine, and if anything is going to kill him, it will be me."

Jezebel looks over the railing. "And the last gladiator? The unconscious one? He's refusing to kill that one, as well."

Dean grins. "Have him sent to me at dinner. Have them both sent to me."

_______________________________________________________________

The table is set for two, one place for Dean at the head and another for Sam on the other end. Their third guest is on it.

Sam is escorted in by two demons on each side, still wrapped up in his chains. He takes one glance at the table and then turns away as if he's going to be sick. That makes Dean smile.

"Won't you join me for dinner?" he asks.

The demons leading Sam snicker and push him into his chair, about to bolt the chains in place. Instead, Dean holds up his hand, requesting his wine glass be refilled, and waves the others away.

"Take the chains off," he tells them. "My guest won't be needing them."

"But, my lord, he could—"

Dean laughs, letting his black eyes linger on the servant. "He could what? Hurt me?"

"He is a very gifted fighter," the demon says. "And he doesn't like demons."

"Maybe he just hasn't met the right one yet." Dean smiles kindly, turning his gaze on Sam, and the gladiator meets his black eyes with only the slightest of flinches. "You wouldn't do anything stupid, would you now?"

Sam shakes his head, just once, and immediately takes his seat at the table once his chains are removed.

"You can leave us," Dean tells the guards standing scattered through the room.

A few of them move to obey, but some of the bolder ones stay put, exchanging glances, until one steps forward. "Your highness, I don't recommend you stay in a room alone with him, especially not if he's unchained. There are potential weapons available for—"

"Your name is Zablah, is it not?"

The demon, one of Dean's most loyal, nods. "It's an honor that you know my name, emperor. As I was saying, I don't think it's wise to—"

"Thank you so much for your input, Zablah." Dean curls his hand into a fist, the sweet smile not slipping from his face as the demon falls to his knees, grasping desperately at his neck as if that will lessen Dean's hold. He dies slowly, loudly, and with no dignity to be spoken of.

Then Dean drops him and looks to the rest of his guards. "Does anyone else have any friendly suggestions?"

The remaining demons nearly fall over themselves shaking their heads and then begin to scatter out of the room like cockroaches.

"Someone take Zablah out, will you?" Dean asks. "You're all free to feast on him if you're so inclined."

Dean feels the thrum of their excitement at the treat, but no one says anything. He watches three demons drag the corpse out and then the door shuts behind them.

He takes a sip of his wine and turns his attention back to Sam. "Now then, where were we? Welcome to Hell, Sam."

Sam's face gives nothing away. All he says is, "Winchester."

It kind of catches Dean off guard. "What?"

"Sam Winchester," Sam clarifies. "That's my name."

"I didn't ask," Dean replies with a cut off laugh. "Why would I care?"

"The name Winchester doesn't mean anything to you?" Sam asks. As if he has a right to demand things from Dean. Dean almost wants to ask if he wasn't paying attention to what just happened, if he should try another display.

Instead, he sets his glass down and pretends the conversation doesn't puzzle him in the slightest. "It's a gun," he answers. "Not my favorite kind of weapon, not personal enough. But I like to watch you humans try to stay noble when you have one in your hands."

"That's all." Sam swallows hard and looks down at the table. "And you don't know me."

"I know all about you," Dean tells him.

Sam's head snaps up, a wild look of hope in his expression that Dean is looking forward to crushing.

"I've been watching you fight for months now. I like the way you kill."

Sam laughs at that. "I learned from the best."

"You disappointed me today," he says. "What you did—kindness, pity, nobility. These things make me sick, you understand?"

"They were people," Sam reasons. "It would have been murder."

"You've murdered many things on my watch," he says. "Creatures much more valuable than the men you tried to save."

"Monsters." Sam gives Dean a tight-lipped smile. "I was taught to kill monsters. The man who taught me, he wouldn't like me killing people. Not unless I had to."

"Maybe you don't understand where you are and who I am," says Dean. "I'm the King of Hell, and you're just a slave in my domain. You do have to kill. You kill anything I feel like watching you kill, or I'll teach you what happens when my slaves disrespect me."

Sam listens without seeming to hear. No fear flashes across his face, and when Dean is finished speaking, he smiles. "I disobeyed your order in front of all your subjects today. You retaliated by saving my life."

"I've got better things in store for you than an easy death," he replies.

Sam's smile widens. "I'm flattered that you've taken such an interest."

Dean feels the human's insolence grating on him, but he checks his anger. If Sam wants to play this out with smiles, Dean can be a gracious host. He waves at the table. "Please, won't you eat? My cooks worked hard preparing this meal, just for you."

Sam looks at the serving platter in the middle of the table, at the top half of a man sitting on it, his insides spilling out of his ripped open chest.

"It's a good thing you refused to kill him," Dean taunts. "He wouldn't have been nearly as fresh."

"I'm not hungry," Sam replies, his face twisting in obvious disgust.

"Don't be rude," Dean says, his lips turning up. Finally, he's making some progress. Unsettling Sam's unruffled façade. He waves his hand at the meal so that some of it floats onto Sam's plate and some of it to his. "He was a good man, you know. His daughter had leukemia. Eight years old. He sold his soul to save her and the hellhounds dragged him down here just as she was crossing the stage for her high school graduation."

"Please, stop," Sam says, closing his eyes hard against the sight of the piece of meat in front of him. It's no good, Dean is sure. There's no blocking out the smell.

"If you'd lost today, he would have gone right back up. Seen her go to college, get married. Instead he's here, sitting on your plate. Too bad your mercy couldn't save him." Dean takes a bite and frowns. "Though I do wish just once they would fry the skin like I asked."

Although Sam still isn't moving to eat, he does smile faintly. "It's not good for you," he says, looking up at Dean. "Consuming as much fried food as you do."

"That's what they tell me," he replies, rolling his eyes. "Nutritionists for the King of Hell. That's how you know even the mighty are punished."

"You think that's bad, you should see where they keep Lucifer."

Dean blinks a few times in confusion. There are places in Hell even he has never been, places Crowley shuddered to mention. He knows the Devil is locked up down here somewhere. But how Sam could know that, and even seem to know what the prison is like, is intriguing to say the least.

"Who _are_ you?" Dean asks. "My servants tell me you strolled up to them and requested to fight. That alone makes you interesting." Dean drums his fingers on the table. "I'll need to know why. And just how you found your way in, of course."

"I've been here before," Sam says, as if it's that simple. "As to why, well. I came to save you."

"Save me?" Dean snorts. "Save me from what?"

"From yourself," Sam responds. "From this place. From being damned."

Dean laughs. "There's no saving me, boy. All you'll do is lose your soul trying."

"Maybe," Sam admits. "But I'm here. I'm trying."

He stands, leaning forward on the table and staring Sam down. "I could tear out your heart for even suggesting it."

"Yes," Sam says simply. "And yet you haven't."

"You think that means I can be saved?" Dean asks, raising an eyebrow.

Sam shakes his head. "I think the fact that you're you means you can be saved."

"And who am I?" He smiles. "Other than the demonic King of Hell."

Oddly enough, that question is the first thing Dean has said that seems to truly upset Sam. "If you can't remember, there's no use in me telling."

Dean slams his hands on the table. "I want real answers."

"These aren't questions you should have to ask," Sam tells him. "You haven't been here that long. You shouldn't have forgotten who you are yet and you must— _you must_ know who I am." He looks up, into Dean's eyes, pleading. "Dean, don't you know me?"

What Dean sees in Sam's eyes makes him sick. Love and devotion and a twisted feeling in his gut that wants him to mirror it back. Instead, he stands and crosses to the end of the table, picks Sam up and shakes him.

"What do you know?" he demands.

Sam, who Dean has seen choke a hydra to death with its own long necks, just dangles there limply. He doesn't fight. He doesn't even try to resist.

Dean drops him to the ground, punching the gladiator in the face several times before Sam lifts his hands to try to block the blow. But that's all he does.

"Too afraid to strike back?" Dean growls. "What happened to my mighty fighter, Sam?"

"I won't hurt you," he says. "I'll die before I hurt you."

Dean kicks him right in his mouth to shut him up. "You can't. You're too afraid to even try."

The gladiator wipes blood off his face and looks up at Dean. "If it helps you to believe that."

"Fight back!" Dean yells, picking Sam up with one arm and punching him repeatedly with the other.

He pushes Dean with just enough force to make Dean stumble back, dropping him, but he doesn't strike while Dean is finding his footing. That infuriates him enough that he breaks one of Sam's legs with a twist of his wrist, and Sam falls to the floor with a shout.

Sam crawls forward, grabbing onto Dean's leg and looking up at him with tears in his eyes. "I forgive you."

Dean kicks him away, kicks him a few more times, and Sam curls up against the hits. "I forgive you," he says again as he rolls on the floor. "Dean, I forgive you."

He grabs Sam and shakes him, leaning down just enough to hold Sam so their faces are only inches apart. "Stop saying that!" he yells. "Fight back!"

Sam lifts his hands, and Dean is anticipating a hit. Instead Sam strokes his face, smiling with lips Dean busted. "I forgive you, Dean. I always will."

Dean throws him hard, watches Sam's powerful body go crashing into the table. "I'll kill you."

"Maybe you will," Sam replies as he stumbles to his feet. Dean watches him wince in pain, then lift the leg he broke. "Maybe you will, but I don't care. I forgive you. And I love you."

Dean roars, shifting into his demonic form and enveloping Sam in smoke. "Say that again and I'll—"

"I love you," Sam says, even as he coughs on the smoke wrapping around his neck. Dean drops him, and Sam falls to the floor on all fours, but he doesn't stop like Dean so desperately wishes he would. "I loved you when you covered me in garbage bags because it was raining and we didn't have raincoats and I didn't want to miss the first day of school. I loved you every time you saved me, even when I wished you hadn't. And I love you now, when you're like this. When you eat flesh and beat me, I still love you, Dean. Whatever you do to me or to anyone else, I forgive you."

"I don't know what you’re talking about," Dean screams, lashing out at the nearest object. It's a vase, and it goes tumbling, shatters just inches from where Sam is trying to prop his battered body against the wall. "Nothing you're saying happened. I never saved you. I don't even know who you are."

Sam smiles, resting his head against the wall. "If that were really true, I would be dead already."

Dean yells for the guards, and as soon as the door is open, they swarm around Sam, all of them sharing grins when they see the state he's in.

"Not so strong now, is he? Do we get to watch you kill him?" one asks. "You do kill so beautifully, my king."

The ass-kissing only upsets him more in the wake of Sam's disobedience and his own failure to punish Sam for it.

"I wouldn't let him off that easy," Dean responds, though he knows it's something else keeping Sam alive. Some faint niggling in the back of his mind. The way Sam's eyes light up when they look at him, even as he huddles in the corner, arms wrapped around his legs and not an inch of him that isn't blue, purple, or red from the force of Dean's attack.

"Take him back to his cell," Dean says. He points to the body on the table. "Throw that in with him. And make it very clear he won't be let out again until it's been eaten."

The next time Dean sees Sam, he has a thick chain around his neck, securing him to the arena and ensuring he can't walk more than a few feet without being yanked back. His body is whole again, healed from Dean's attack despite the fact that it's only been a little over a week since Dean broke him open.

Hell has a funny way of doing that. Gluing you back together so something new can rip you apart. Dean likes to think it's poetic.

He watches Sam struggle against the metal holding him in place and smiles. "If he's here—he ate the body? The whole thing, as I ordered?"

"Well," Jezebel says, drawing it out. "Not…not exactly."

Dean's smug expression drops. "I thought I said he was to remain in his cage until he'd finished it off."

She bounces her head from one side to another and finally speaks, "He fed it to the hellhounds that guard him. You said it needed to be eaten, not that he had to—"

"You let him outsmart you?" Dean asks. "A human?"

"Technically, it was your wording, so he outsmarted—"

Dean clenches his hands and Jezebel's entire body is crunched between them, his demon powers a vice that will grind her into powder. "I dare you to finish that sentence."

"Us," she gasps, and Dean releases her. "He outsmarted me and my senators, my lord. I'm sorry. He's…he's just very intelligent for a human."

For some reason, that makes Dean's body hum. Hearing someone praise Sam's intelligence, even when it's being used to humiliate him…it makes him feel oddly like a proud parent.

He watches Sam's face as they lead his opponent out and is pleased to see that it stays impassive. Unmoved. Maybe Sam will prove himself in this battle, even if he found a way out of his punishment for botching the last one.

"You told him everything I asked you to?" Dean swishes his wine and looks over to Jezebel, who nods her head respectfully.

"The old man's name. That he was a good man, one of the best we've ever seen in Hell." She smiles as she speaks. "Spent his whole life doing what little he could to lift up his poverty-stricken neighborhood, sold his soul without asking for five minutes so that his grandson's killers would be brought to justice."

Dean gives her a satisfied look before taking another sip from his drink. "And the terms?"

"He goes free if he wins the fight, or if Sam shows him mercy the way he did the last humans he fought. Back up to his family to die a natural death."

"How did he take it?" Dean asks.

She shrugs. "Hard to tell. I guess we'll find out when the fight starts."

Down in the dirt, the old man has just been handed a sword and left alone as the demons that escorted him in exit. He looks frail enough that just holding the heavy metal might be too much, but he steels himself, approaching Sam, his trepidation obvious even from where Dean is sitting.

It's hard to tell what to expect with Sam, but Dean never gets much of a chance to wonder. As soon as the old man is within his reach, he pulls him in, forcing him to drop the sword, and Sam snaps his neck without hesitation.

He cradles the body as he drops it to the ground and then raises his arm, signaling his victory. Every movement is like clockwork, and Sam's expression is far away. Removed from what he's done.

The demons in the crowd are all jeering now, laughing at the old man, and at Sam, too. Teasing him about his tenth win, about how he'll never get out, about how weak he had been in letting those other men live and how their emperor would never give him freedom now. A week ago, they had all been arguing for fairness, for Dean to let him go, but then, that's demons for you. Happy as long as someone else is suffering more than they are.

Jezebel sounds duly impressed as she looks down on the carnage. "Looks like you finally taught him some obedience."

"Yes," Dean says, his tone cocksure to cover his unease. He had watched Sam's expression when the demons had carried him away after Dean beat him. There wasn't a drop less of determination, and Sam going with this kill so easily isn't sitting right with him.

"Bring him to my palace tomorrow morning," he tells Jezebel. "I'm not done teaching him."

_______________________________________________________________

"Leave us for a few minutes before you send in my first appointment," Dean instructs his servants as they bring Sam in and shepherd him into a chair set up at the right of Dean's throne. "I'd like to have a few words with my champion."

The demons all bow their heads and Dean waits until the door has closed behind him to turn to look at Sam.

"Good morning, Sam," he says, with a grin. "I hope you slept well with all that innocent blood on your hands."

"He didn't bleed," is all Sam says.

Dean clucks his tongue and hesitates for a long minute before finally he can't resist asking the question he's been dying to know the answer to. "Why did you do it? Why did you kill him?"

Sam looks up with a sarcastic expression. "You finally broke me," he says. "Isn't that what everyone in the kingdom believes?"

"The mob, yes. But now it's just you and me. And I know I—I don't like to admit it. But I didn't break you. I didn't come close." He drums his fingers on the arm of his throne. "So what was the real reason?"

The gladiator licks his lips, and his voice drops almost to a whisper, "You weren't going to call me here again unless I interested you, and I don't interest you when I'm not killing."

"And that was worth damning a good soul to Hell for?"

Sam shrugs. "He sold his soul himself."

"For just reasons. You could have saved him."

"I'm not here to save him," Sam says. "I can't save you if I can't speak to you."

"You can't save me period," Dean replies with a soft laugh. "You threw that man's soul away for nothing."

"I will save you." Sam looks down at his hands. "I don't care how many souls it takes."

"You'll damn your own like that," Dean tells him. "It's not too late to give this up. Leave Hell the way you came. Go back to being a good guy where your efforts might make a difference."

He doesn't know why he's offering the gladiator an out after all his disrespect, why this possibility bothers him so much. Sam losing his own soul in the misguided attempt to save Dean's—that's comedy gold. But the thought makes his stomach turn.

"This isn't about being a good guy," says Sam. "I'm here for your soul. If I lose mine in the process then…" He swallows hard and turns away. "There wasn't ever much hope for mine anyway."

"But you think there is for mine?" Dean shakes his head. "You don't know the things I've done, Sam. You can't imagine. There's no soul blacker than mine in Hell. Do you think they made me king because of my strength of character?"

Sam meets his eyes with a fire in his expression, and he replies in a tone Dean hasn't heard since he killed the last of the demons that truly tried to challenge his rule. "You don't know what you've done, either. You don't know how good you really are. I know you better than you'll ever know yourself. You were so good you had to make yourself forget just to carry on being a demon."

"That's not why!" Dean barks out, but Sam just laughs at him.

"What do you know?" he says, a nasty smile taking over. "You don't know anything. You're just a scared animal trying to hide from your memories so you can keep things easy. You think you're a king. You're an embarrassment."

Dean slaps him and Sam spits out blood, but he looks up at Dean with no less defiance in his expression.

"Who do you think you're going to help?" Dean asks. "Even if you saved me, what difference would it make? Hell is Hell. It's been here longer than I have, and if you pulled me out, someone else would just take my place. You can't make a difference. You're just a weak little human soul and I'll kill you if you ever speak to me like that again."

Sam shakes his head mournfully. "You sure are stupid as a demon, Dean. I just told you, I'm not here to shut down Hell or save people or be a hero. I'm here for you. That's it. And I will save you."

"Why me?" he shakes Sam by the shoulders. "Why this obsession with saving me?"

"You know why," Sam replies. "I won't play along like your demons do. I know deep down you still remember who you really are."

He releases Sam and yells for his guards. "I'm going to show you who I am. You’re going to sit right there and watch me for one day, and you'll see what kind of soul you're trying to save."

The demons bring in his first appointment of the day, a soldier, one who fought for Dean well and made an easy mistake accounting for soul revenue. Normally, Dean would let him go with a simple flaying, but with Sam at his side, he's feeling the need to show off.

It becomes a busy day. Each soul that is brought before Dean for punishment is dealt with more creatively than the last, regardless of the crime. He gets carried away, forgets that Sam is even there and that he has a reason for this carnage. There's only him, his need to destroy things, and his prey.

It's been a long time since Dean had this much fun. He's been letting the monsters in the coliseum handle his problems for far too long.

He cleans his blade off on the last of his victims, then takes a casual bite from the intestine in his other hand. "Mmm," he says turning to Jezebel and offering her some of the charred flesh. "See, this is what I'm talking about. Good old fashioned barbeque."

She accepts the offering and gestures for the body and the rack it's still hanging on, begging for mercy despite the fact that all its internal organs are dripping across the floor, to be removed.

"He was loyal to you," she says once the corpse is gone, and Dean realizes that she looks as disturbed by the days' events as he'd been hoping Sam would be. "All of them were, why did you kill them?"

Dean shrugs. "Felt like it."

Jezebel licks her lips. "I've been loyal to you as well."

"Yes," he agrees. "And I don't see becoming disloyal as _less_ likely to get you killed."

"But—"

Dean snorts. "Why is Crowley dead?"

"Because he trusted you," she replies.

"And why has no one dared to challenge me since he fell?"

"Because you're a Knight. You're stronger than us."

"Good." Dean puts his hand on her shoulder. "Demons don't respect loyalty. They don't bow to birthright. I reign because I'm powerful. You want to stay alive? Don't be loyal to me. Be useful to me."

"Yes, my lord." She bows her head. "Anything else for the day?"

"No, that's all. You're excused."

Dean tosses his snack aside and licks his fingers clean as he turns his attention to Sam. The human is watching him with a mix of revulsion and something else Dean can't put a name on. There are tears on his cheeks.

He laughs, giving Sam a couple of rousing slaps and not minding the way the salt in Sam's tears stings his fingers. "What's wrong, hero? Did I upset you?"

"You're going to be so guilty when you get back," he says. "You'll hate yourself for doing this. Just like last time."

Dean rolls his eye. "Still think I can be saved, then?"

"Always," Sam tells him, meeting his eyes. "Always."

Three demons toss a squirming Sam onto the bed unceremoniously and walk out, averting their eyes from Dean's. He watches the demons go until it's just Sam and him alone in his chamber. Sam turns over too quickly, trying to move up the bed as if that can save him.

He smiles. "Hello again."

Sam licks his lips, pulls his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, like he's trying to hide his nakedness. "Hi."

"I thought I'd try a new method of persuasion," Dean says, drinking in the sight of Sam. There's no pretending the man isn't beautiful, or that Dean hasn't wanted this since the first time he saw Sam. Sex has, for the most part, not interested Dean much since he got to Hell. It's a lesser sin. No true malice in it, most of the time, and not worth the time and energy expended on it.

But that changed when Sam arrived. There's no telling why Dean has resisted taking this as long as he has, but there's a fire curling in him as he looks at Sam and knows it's a matter of moments.

Maybe once he gets this out of his system, he can wash himself clean of Sam altogether.

"Would you like to try asking me not to?" he asks as he climbs onto the bed, pinning Sam down with his mind as he advances. Spreading out all those long, long limbs so Sam can’t use them to cover up.

Dean isn't really expecting Sam to beg for mercy, as much as that would make his night. He's anticipating more of the same, Sam's stubborn acceptance of everything Dean throws at him, despite obvious disapproval.

What he isn't expecting is the relief that comes over Sam's face. The desire. Total submission to the point that the only struggle Sam puts up against Dean's mental grip on him is to try and open himself up more.

"Fuck, Dean, it's been so long," he says. "Please."

The words catch him so far off guard that Dean drops him. Lets go of his mental hold, sits back on his knees, and stares at Sam. "You…want…?"

"What, you thought you could force me?" he asks, laughing as his tongue works up the side of Dean's face and curls around his ear. "You wanted this to be torture? There's nothing you can take from me that isn't yours already, Dean. You used to know that."

"I did?" he asks, shaking as Sam's mouth works at him and—fuck. No. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. "I'll hurt you. I'm going to hurt you."

"I wish you would," Sam whispers, pushing the robe off of Dean's shoulders, and suddenly Dean feels vulnerable. It's not like he hadn't been planning to remove it. But he was going to do it himself.

Sam kisses Dean and Dean bites his lip with sharp teeth. Sam moans at that, drags Dean down on top of him as he says, "Please, please. Missed it so much. Dean, please."

Dean flips him over, puts him on all fours. In a submissive position. One where Dean doesn't have to look at him, or that disgusting way he has of staring at Dean like he's a godsend, or the terrifying rush of warmth that surges through him when he sees that expression on Sam's face.

He'll make Sam regret this. He'll make Sam hate him. He has to.

So he mounts Sam and shoves into him dry. It's uncomfortable for Dean, much too tight and unyielding, so he can't imagine how uncomfortable it is for Sam.

Under him, the gladiator gives a soft cry of pain and Dean shoves into him harder. "How's that, Sam? You like that."

"Yes," Sam replies through gritted teeth. He shifts so that he's holding himself up on his elbows and lets his head drop to the pillows. "Don't stop on my account."

Dean growls at the implication that he would, as if he was actually checking Sam's comfort, and becomes furious with himself that he had stopped, waited for Sam's response before pumping his hips again.

He shuts it out, fucking Sam furiously, knowing the punched out sounds Sam releases as Dean uses him, fucks him raw and dry and dirty, are not pleasure. They can't be.

"You want a little something to ease it," Dean asks teasingly, his tongue curling in Sam's ear the way Sam had done to him. But his tongue splits, two-pronged like a snake, making Sam hiss and squirm beneath him.

Sam is quiet for a long time, so Dean pushes into him roughly, and Sam whimpers, "Yes. Please. Anything."

Dean grins with all his sharp teeth and digs his claws into Sam's back, watching the blood bead up as he pulls his cock out. He smears his hand through it and jerks his dick as Sam lets out a pained sound.

"It'll be better now," Dean promises as he presses in, but Sam shakes his head.

"Blood dries too quickly," he says. "Not good for—"

"Well, you have plenty of blood in you," Dean replies. "We can keep it up for a while yet."

He lowers himself and keeps fucking into Sam, and now that there's some give, Sam gasps and pushes his hips up. Dean licks some of the blood on Sam's wide back and feels something spark through him at the taste.

"'s good," Sam says, wantonly grinding up into Dean. "So good. Missed you. God, I love you like this."

It's so sweet. So sweet to have Sam wanting him. The heart he doesn't have in his chest beats faster.

"No," Dean insists, biting into his neck for more blood and sucking at the wound hungrily. "No, stop it."

"Drink me," Sam says. "Fuck me. Whatever you want. Anything. I'm all yours, Dean. I'm all yours."

Dean feels his pleasure riding up on him without his permission, breaking over him when Sam moves in a way no one else has ever done, a way that makes a thousand orgasms he doesn't remember having spark in his memories. He shouts out Sam's name as he loses control of himself, thrusting blindly and roughly and Sam just takes it and takes it, panting loudly as Dean's seed fills him, making the slide of his cock finally easy inside of Sam.

He pulls away, withdraws his dick and turns Sam over, freezing his prisoner's hand before he can even think of touching himself for release. But Sam just looks up at him and his head falls back, and Dean watches Sam's cock as it comes, untouched and entirely neglected. This was supposed to hurt Sam. This was supposed to crush Sam. Sam's back is still bleeding into Dean's sheets and yet the man is staring up like he thinks he's in Heaven instead of the opposite.

For the first time in centuries, Dean feels his eyes slip, green instead of black filtering over them as he watches Sam curl up on the pillows, sated and adoring.

Sam's own eyes get soft and he reaches out, tracing Dean's cheek as he doesn't blink or take his gaze away from Dean's. "That's better," he says. "There's my Dean."

Dean sneers as he forces his eyes back under control. "When I fucked you—I bet it wasn't like that before."

Sam turns onto his side, laughing like Dean just told a good joke. "You think that was something?"

"I hurt you." Dean feels a crease form between his eyes. "I didn't hurt you before. You loved me."

"Some people are so stupid about love," Sam says, almost as if he's talking to a child. "You think it's something good and pure, you think love makes people act like heroes."

Sam sits up, propping his sliced open back against Dean's headboard, and Dean figures if he didn’t want Sam bleeding all over everything, he could have planned this better.

"Love makes us monsters, too," Sam says. "Makes us do terrible things. How do you think you turned into a demon?"

Dean holds out his arm, shows Sam the Mark on his forearm, and Sam huffs a laugh like it's an insignificant scratch. "You and I, Dean. On Earth. Yes, we loved each other very much. And we did the wickedest things because of it. Filthy things."

He wants to say Sam is lying, that he's only telling Dean this to make him wonder, but the way he looks up at Dean. The promises in that dirty smile. A shiver runs through him, and he _does_ wish he could remember.

"You don't have the creativity. You don't have the passion." Sam shakes his head and pats Dean's cheek like he's sorry for him. "You couldn't begin to imagine the things you've done to me. This was nothing."

"I could remember if I wanted to," Dean snaps at him.

Sam traces the lines of the Mark and nods. "Yes. So why don't you?"

Dean hesitates and Sam laughs at him. It's a cruel enough sound that Dean's eye jump up to meet his.

"You're scared, that's why. You turned yourself into this. Let this stupid Mark take you over completely. You tore down Hell and built a new one, all to save yourself from remembering. Because it was easier this way wasn't it? Because you could be simple and nasty if there wasn't anything to remind you. You got rid of everything you are because remembering me made it too hard to be a monster."

"You think very highly of yourself," Dean replies, because he can't really rebut it. He doesn't know why he made himself forget. If he picks at it, the whole damn world may come tumbling down around them.

Sam presses his lips into a thin line and shrugs. "I never thought—of all the things I imagined I might see when I came down here, I never thought I would see Dean Winchester become a coward."

It's the name that catches him more than the insult, and he looks at Sam with a questioning gaze.

Sam doesn't offer another word, just sits there, staring at Dean and breathing. Dean likes the sound of it, the reassuring in and out of air in Sam's lungs. It scares him.

"Your blood," he says, changing the subject. "It doesn't taste like human blood. Not regular human blood anyway."

"It tastes like demon," Sam guesses, his voice much weaker than it was when he was hurling his insults at Dean. "I guess we share that now."

"Yes, but that's not what I meant. It tastes—it tastes pure."

"I confessed," Sam says. "Before I came here. My worst sins."

"You knew I would drink it," says Dean. "You thought you could cure me with your tainted blood?"

"It's your tainted blood, too," Sam answers. He sighs and looks away. "It's tainted, yes. But it's enough. I can cure you. If you drink, I can cure you."

"What if I drink you dry?" Dean asks jokingly. "Then I'll be saved and you'll be dead. How's that sound?"

"Worth it," Sam says without even stopping to think. 

"What did you confess?" he asks, just because he's curious.

Sam does hesitate this time, but Dean can tell he's not lying when he finally decides to speak. "I let my brother become a demon. Best man there ever was. He did everything for me. Saved me so many times. He damned himself to save me."

"How?"

"He had a Mark just like this," Sam says, bringing Dean's forearm to his lips and kissing it softly. "It made him want to kill. It made him dark. It made him a demon. I saved him, but it was still there. And he fought it. For such a long time he fought it. He was the strongest man, my brother."

"Not so strong," Dean answers. "There's no point in fighting that kind of urge, Sam. It's good. Giving in feels good."

Voice trembling, Sam keeps talking. "He fought and he controlled it and then one day I—there were all these men. So many of them, I couldn't take them all at once. He saved me from them. He saved me but by the time he was done with them…"

Sam shudders, and Dean finishes the story for him. "It was too late."

His brother nods. "It was too late."

"No," Dean says, shaking his head and tearing his arm away from Sam's gentle touches. "This is who I am. This is who I have always been."

"It's not," Sam insists. "This isn't you. Dean. You’re my big brother. I need you back, please. I can tell a part of you wants to be that again. Giving in feels good, right?"

"Not to that," Dean answers. 

He feels a sudden swell of anger rise in him. Things were simple for hundreds and hundreds of Hell years until Sam came along. Things were fucked up and fun and nothing interrupted that. And now there's this—this sick pull in Dean's chest as if he has a heart and Sam is breaking it. Things were good and what Sam wants him to remember is pain.

"This Mark makes me powerful. I'm a king. You won't save me like this." He smiles, a hundred fangs shaping as he lets Sam see his true face. "You know what, Sam? Let's make a trade."

He slices into his arm and holds it out. "I drank. Now you drink."

Sam looks at the offered limb with as much lust as he'd had for Dean an hour before. Like he wants to do what Dean is asking. But he shakes his head and pushes the offering away. "I can't do that."

"You can," Dean tells him, grabbing him by the hair and tugging him in. "And you will."

"I won't." Sam closes his eyes and Dean can tell he's holding his breath. Trying not to breathe it in. He wants this. Dean hadn't expected that. "I'll never stop."

Dean loosens his hold, running his hand through Sam's hair instead of pulling it. "You don't ever have to. You'll like it after a while. You'll grow to like it."

"I know," Sam licks his lip and looks up at Dean, his expression so desperate that it makes Dean want to give in.

It's that impulse that pushes him. "I didn't say you had a choice."

Dean is caught completely off guard when Sam lashes out at him, pushing him away with such force that he stumbles back and nearly falls off his bed. "I won't fucking drink it."

Furious, Dean catches him with his powers and shoves Sam down. "Aw, you hurt my feelings, Sam. I thought you promised not to strike me."

"Said I wouldn't hurt Dean," Sam replies, and Dean can see that there are tears trying to leak from his eyes, but the angle Dean's powers have him stuck at make them pool instead. "You're not Dean. He would never ask—"

"Sweetheart, I'm not asking." Dean curls his body around Sam's, propping his brother up against his chest like a rag doll, still frozen in his grasp, but at an angle where his mouth is near Dean's bleeding wound. The salt in Sam's tears burns his flesh when they begin to fall, and the sensation makes his cock start to thicken again.

"Don't make me," Sam pleads, his voice smaller than Dean has ever heard it, because that's all he can manage while trapped in Dean's clutch. "My brother would hate me."

Dean laughs and forces Sam's mouth to his broken skin. "Your brother is dead."

_______________________________________________________________

They do the whole song and dance again the next night. Sam by his side during the day, face hardened against Dean's torture. Sam in his bed at night, lips red from drinking Dean in.

They take their fill. Night after night they tangle, flesh and blood all slapping together and something both sweet and bitter coming out of the chaos. Sam doesn't fight the drug Dean feeds him, not after the first few times. And his sanctified blood doesn’t taste like poison on Dean's lips for long, either.

_______________________________________________________________

Dean is running his fingers through Sam's hair, watching heatedly as his brother sucks on a fresh cut on his thigh, when a knock at the door disturbs him.

Sam tries to pull away and sit up, but Dean forces him back down as he calls, "Come in."

Jezebel enters, her black eyes stopping immediately on Sam and narrowing. "Oh. He's here."

"That's no way to greet your king," Dean says, giving her a reprimanding look.

"I apologize, my lord," she says, bowing her head. "May I speak to you in private?"

"What's more private than my bedchamber when I'm nearly naked and I've got a mouth on my thigh?" Dean asks with a laugh.

The demon frowns, again fixing her gaze on Sam. "As in, without him here."

"You don't trust Sam?" Dean pets his brother reassuringly as he licks at a stray drop of blood and mouths along the hot skin of Dean's inner leg. Truth be told, this conversation is tedious, and Dean could really stand to get back to where his and Sam's activities were leading.

"Trust is for the weak," she replies, softening the insult by adding, "you taught me that, highness."

Dean glowers because—well, it's true. Dean did believe that. He _does_ believe that. It's just…this is Sam, and there are different rules for Sam.

"Say what you came here to say," he demands. "I have better things to get to."

"Better things like him?" she says with a sneer. She draws herself to her greatest height, feet clicking together, body strung tight but her stance defiant nonetheless. "He makes you weak, your grace, and he's not as loyal to you as you are to him. I came here to tell you that he's been—"

Dean feels a sharp rush in his thigh, like his blood is all being sucked out of him at once, and suddenly her voice is stopped. Jezebel clutches her throat, a confused look on her face that quickly turns to terror as she raises her head. Sam sits up in bed next to Dean, wiping blood off on the back of his forearm, and smiles at Dean with red-stained teeth.

"Can I kill her?" he asks sweetly. "It's been so long since I killed."

"No, no," Dean says, laughing gently. "Not her. We'll call someone else in for you to play with."

He leans in for a kiss, and Sam grants it, his hold on Jezebel not faltering even as he lets Dean distract him.

Dean is duly impressed. "I didn't know you had powers," he says, tugging on a strand of Sam's hair. "What are you, little brother?"

"Just that," Sam answers. He flinches, the scrunched look on his face making it obvious that holding Jezebel is beginning to take more effort than it did at first. "The powers come from the blood."

"So you _have_ had it before?" Dean asks.

Sam nods.

"Jezebel is no newly minted demon," Dean tells him. "Her power is old. You must be very strong to be holding her."

Sam brings a hand up to his forehead and says, "Strong enough," through gritted teeth.

"Let's make a deal," says Dean, reaching out to touch Sam's thigh. "Let Jezebel go. Tell me about your powers. And I'll bring you demons you can drink dry, as many as you want. All the blood in Hell is yours, Sammy."

"I only want your blood," Sam insists, and that turns Dean on so much he accepts it. But then Sam's hand curls into a fist and he turns to look at Jezebel, who is clearly trying to cry out in pain. Her eyes are fixed on Dean, pleading. "And hers."

"Why her?" he asks.

"You like her," Sam replies, and Dean shrugs as he nods. His brother's voice gets dark, low and dangerous, and it's like music to Dean's ears, "I don't like sharing."

That gets Dean's already needy dick hard in moments, and he bites his bottom lip as he grins at his brother. "She's all yours, Sam."

Sam immediately kills her, the effort it takes exhausting him, but Dean doesn't need Sam to be in prime condition to get pleasure out of him. He fucks his brother rough and hungry and doesn't stop to wonder until Sam has drifted to sleep at his side if maybe he should have waited for Jezebel to say what she came to say before letting Sam waste her.

_______________________________________________________________

This fight has lasted two hours. Dean is tired of it, so he can't begin to imagine how tired Sam, who has been bleeding and dodging, carrying heavy armor, giving and receiving hits, must be.

It's not a fair fight. Nothing is against Sam. The manticore he's up against is an embarrassment of a monster. It became clear early on that Sam was going to kick its ass, so it's spent most of the fight in the air, hovering out of Sam's reach, making the gladiator chase it in circles and only lowering itself to get in a quick swipe when the attack is easy.

"Almost makes you want to intervene, doesn't it?" the demon at his side, some minor foot soldier whose name Dean has not bothered to learn, asks. "Use your powers to ground the damn thing?"

Dean invited him to sit at his side, just as he has a different demon every day since Jezebel fell. None of them have filled her shoes, and this one is just as dull as the rest. Dean would admit he misses her if Sam hadn't looked so pretty tearing her down.

The question upsets him, and he realizes why as soon as he looks at Sam again, swinging his sword ineffectually at the creature.

He's been in Dean's bed every night for the last month. He's been drinking, or so Dean believed. If he's strong enough to kill Jezebel, if he was truly Lucifer's vessel as Sam insisted he was, then why is some manticore flying around unchecked? This fight should have been a joke to Sam. If Sam has been drinking, he could ground this beast and end the combat without even lifting his sword.

Dean realizes that he—Emperor and Knight of Hell—has been played. Made a fool by a human soul.

He flicks out his wrist in annoyance and the demon at his side flies forward, tumbling down into the arena. If the fall doesn't kill him, the manticore, now turning its attention from Sam to the easy meal, will.

"Call off the fight," Dean tells his nearest servant. "And have Sam brought to me immediately."

_______________________________________________________________

Dean doesn't wait for the demons who escort Sam in to leave the room before slapping his brother, sending Sam halfway across the room with the force of the blow.

He's not doing it to show off this time, couldn't care less what the demons think of him. He's too angry to wait. Sam's betrayal _hurt him_ , and that frail human emotion upsets him more than the lie or the fact that his best lieutenant is dead.

Sam's blood has apparently had more effect than Dean realized. And his has had none at all on Sam.

"You maggot," Dean growls, watching for the door to close before admitting his folly. "You tricked me. You thought you could get away with that, did you?"

"I did get away with it," Sam replies, holding his fingers to his swollen eye as he looks up at Dean with—hatred. Hatred in his eyes. Dean can't bear to see it. "What? You stupid bastard, did you think you had a monopoly on lying? You think I don't know how to manipulate just because I'm not a demon?"

Dean smashes his fists against a nearby pillar, the material crumbling upon impact. "I trusted you."

"Yes." Sam stands, holding himself with such dignity that even the bruise rising on his face doesn't make Dean feel more in control. "I told you exactly what I came here to do, and yet you trusted me. I wonder if it's because a part of you wants me to win, or if you're just that stupid."

Dean crosses the room, grabbing Sam by the fabric of his black robes and pushing him against the wall. "How dare you?"

Sam smiles. "I'd like to believe it's the first thing, but having gotten to know you a little, I'm thinking it's probably the second."

He rears back to punch Sam, but Sam catches his wrist, turning it and shoving Dean so he hits the wall instead. He pushes his entire body up against Dean's back as he holds him, and Dean feels a guilty spark of arousal.

His brother's lips graze the shell of his ear as he says, cold and clear, "I'm about done letting you slap me around now, Dean."

Dean pushes Sam away with his mind, and if Sam had been drinking like he should have, maybe he would be able to block it. Things being as they are, he tumbles back, tripping onto the floor, where Dean makes sure he stays. He almost looks like he's bowing, stuck on his hands and knees like that.

Much better.

"Know your place," Dean tells him. "You think just because I've let you have a little freedom lately it means you're my superior? You're nothing."

"Call me what you want," Sam says. "You don't matter to me. Your opinion of me is worthless. You're just something standing in the way. And I am getting my brother back."

"How?" Dean replies in a teasing tone. "With your soiled blood? Huh? All that evil you put into yourself willingly before I ever came along, and you think you're going to pull me out? I don't want to be saved, Sam, and if I did, it wouldn't be you. I could drink every drop of you, confession or not, I'd probably come out worse than I started."

"That's not true," Sam replies, but his voice is lacking all the conviction it had a few minutes ago.

Dean kneels in front of him and forces his brother to look up at him. "How were you doing it?"

"Wasn't really drinking," Sam admits. "Got enough on my mouth, but I spit it out. The hellhounds probably cleaned up the evidence."

He remembers the rush he felt as Sam mouthed at him the night he killed Jezebel, just before he stopped her from talking. "Jezebel figured you out. She was going to tell me you were doing this."

Sam shrugs. "She needed to go regardless. Too loyal to you. Too smart. She saw too much. I would have preferred not to have had to kill her like that, but she had to go."

"I should have kept her and let you die instead." Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean raises an eyebrow. "What's that expression about?"

"You were never going to let me die. You never will."

"You're pretty sure of that, are you?"

"Yes." Sam smiles, just a tiny turn to his lips, but self-assured in a way that annoys Dean. "You've got this thing about letting me die. Honestly, I've found it as inconvenient on occasion as you do, but there it is."

"I'll turn you into something useful, then. Something loyal. I'll twist your little soul better than I did my own."

"Not if I save you, you won't."

Dean huffs a laugh. "You're a stubborn bastard."

"A family trait," Sam answers fondly. "Everything I am I learned from my big brother."

"Not this," Dean says, and he brings his bloody knuckles up to Sam's face so Sam can smell them. Sam flinches, but Dean sees the way his body tightens up, even as his lips thin and he turns his face away. "You may not have swallowed, but I know you wanted to. You dream about this blood every night, don't you? Your brother knew that. Knew you never really stopped being a freak. He hated you for that, and he always would. I could love you for it."

"It doesn't matter if the craving is still there," Sam replies. "I fought it. I've been fighting it for so long. You won't convince me my brother doesn't love me. You can't make me give him up."

"And yet you want to convince me," Dean hesitates, not wanting to show his weakness so plainly, but all of Sam's human blood is rushing through him, making him so soft. And Sam's every word has a worse effect on him than the anger he's let himself show: he feels sadness, rejection. "You said you killed her because you were jealous. Wasn't that even a little bit true?"

"No," Sam replies. His voice is simple and direct. He's not lying, not even a little bit. "I don't want you. You're just something standing in my way. I want—"

"Your brother," Dean interrupts. "So I've heard."

Sam steps forward, wrapping his hand around Dean's face and turning him until they're facing each other. He leans in and gives Dean a gentle kiss, something Dean has never felt in his life. Not that he can recall, anyway. "If you want me to love you, there's an easier way. Let yourself remember who you are, Dean. Be my big brother again."

"I have an easy way that suits me better," Dean says, ripping Sam's tunic so that his chest is exposed. He traces the tattoo, once a sigil to keep demons out, but broken now. Useless. "Looks like someone got you all ready for me."

He watches horrified realization dawn on his brother's face as he calls for a servant to come into the room. Sam shakes his head no, but Dean is already smoking his way into Sam's mouth.

One more way to be inside of his brother, and he can't believe he didn't think of this before. He watches his own empty body drop to the floor at Sam's feet through hazel eyes, and changes them to his preferred black.

"My lord?" the servant asks, looking from Dean's crumpled meatsuit to Sam's.

Dean smiles and pulls the man closer, and he can feel Sam struggling to regain control as he draws the demon in and slices through his throat with one claw.

The fighting stops once his lips are on the wound, once he himself is drawing all the blood in this vessel into his brother's big, beautiful body, and he can feel the relief and comfort that it brings as Sam sinks into the bliss.

"I like it in this body, Sam," Dean says out loud as he lets the drained demon drop onto the floor next to his own meatsuit. "I wanna take it for a spin."

And by the time he's spread out on the bed, undressed himself and run his hand over Sam's huge chest, there's so much lust running through him that he can't tell what's his and what's Sam's.

But he can feel his brother screaming _YES, YES YES_ inside his mind as he wraps a hand around Sam's big cock and begins to jerk them both to orgasm.

_______________________________________________________________

Like any good addict, all it took to fix Sam was a little push. With all that blood pulsing inside of him, with an endless supply of demons to feed on and Dean at his side to encourage him, Sam never stood a chance.

They have to do it the hard way for a few days, Dean possessing Sam and making damn sure he gets his fill. But by the time it's been a week of regular feeding, Sam is the one twitchy and needy throughout the day, pawing at Dean's clothes to get him naked and open a new wound as soon as they reach Dean's bedchamber.

He put up a good fight, poor thing, but the King of Hell knows how to get what he wants. And all he's ever wanted, Dean realizes now, is Sam in his arms, just like this.

"I like it when you breathe," he says idly, staring up at the ceiling. They've both been sated, taken their share of blood and orgasms, and now Sam is resting his head on Dean's chest, tracing symbols on the skin. "Why do I like that so much?"

"Because I'm alive," Sam explains. "You like that I'm alive."

"Mmm," Dean replies, thinking over Sam's theory. "I don't usually take a shine to living things."

"Let me have more," Sam replies, a little one-track minded when they get like this.

Dean laughs and smiles down at him. "You just had some."

"Still hungry," Sam says. "Went without it so long. Please, Dean. Please. Let me taste you. I miss you."

"Of course, baby, of course," Dean tells him, pushing a soothing hand through Sam's hair and cutting into his own chest so Sam can raise himself up, attach his mouth and suckle like Dean is a mother and Sam his hungry, little treasure. "You can have as much as you want."

Sam watches him as he feeds, his eyes getting darker by the moment. Not black, not yet. But Dean has dreams about it. Someday soon, he knows.

His brother rubs against him as he feeds, cock hard on Dean's leg.

"Want me to fuck you?" Dean offers, slipping his hand between Sam's mouth and his own skin so he can turn Sam and make him look up at him. Sam chases his thumb, sucking blood off of it as he nods. "Would you like that? Big brother fucking you while you take my blood."

"Please," Sam begs, such a precious sound when he's like this. "Fuck me."

"Anything you want," Dean tells him, turning them over so that Sam's on his back.

Sam looks up at him, red smeared all over the bottom half of his face, and it would make Dean laugh if he wasn't so turned on. "I want to fight again."

"Yeah?" Dean asks. "You miss killing, huh? Nothing hotter in Hell than watching you kill."

Sam whimpers. "Yes. I want it. Please."

"Tired of sitting at my side?" Dean laughs. "I get bored too, you know. I wish I could be down there killing."

"I'll do it for you," Sam promises. "Let me kill for you, Dean."

"Tomorrow," he promises. "I'll put you back in the arena tomorrow."

"Not people," Sam says.

Dean shakes his head, happy to ease Sam into his darkness if that's what it takes. He can kill souls when he's fully demon. For now, the bloodlust is enough. Besides… "You're wasted on human souls," Dean tells him. "You'll fight something worthy of you."

Sam grins and Dean can't fucking take his eyes off that red mouth. So he changes his mind. Instead of fucking Sam, he shoves his brother's face down and feeds his cock between those painted lips. Sam groans with the same ecstasy when he swallows Dean's come as when he's taking in Dean's blood.

_______________________________________________________________

It's clear from the beginning of the fight that Sam is finally on board with using his powers. Dean has him up against five hellhounds, but the mutts never make it to tearing him apart.

He turns them. His powers are so strong from Dean's nourishment that Sam is able to reverse the order, and the senators who sent them after Sam, who have been the hounds' masters all their lives, become the target instead.

When they're done killing their owners, they curl up at Sam's feet, and Sam lovingly tears the bones off the dead demons and tosses them to the hounds to chew on.

A month ago, something like that would have turned Sam's stomach. Now, he's thrilling in it. He raises his hand in victory and finds Dean's eyes, and even up high on his throne, he can see his brother's eyes are oil slick black, just like his own.

_______________________________________________________________

A few hours later, Dean is hovering over Sam's body, dick shoved deep inside as he watches his brother's eyes, hoping to catch another glimpse of black.

His hands are tight around Sam's long neck and he's wondering how good it would feel to snap it. Of course, it would be a shame to kill Sam. He can only do it once, after all, and he knows it would be addicting. If only there was a way to kill him again and again, then Dean would know paradise.

Without warning, Dean feels his own neck snap instead. He's a demon—a broken neck is more foreplay than anything. But Sam is no demon, even if he knows how to use his powers better than some. There's nothing in Hell or on Earth left that's strong enough to use their powers on Dean. Dean is the last Knight.

He shivers, letting his body crack back into place and coming into Sam as he does so. Then he asks, "How?"

Sam smiles darkly, blinking his eyes shut very slowly. When he opens them again, they're a pale yellow color that makes Dean flinch.

"Be careful what you make of me, Dean," Sam says. Then they switch back to hazel, and Sam shakes his head like he's coming out of a spell.

He smiles confusedly at Dean's alarmed expression and asks, "What's wrong?" and Dean realizes that wasn't his brother he just caught a glimpse of.

It's a sign of wasted potential, Dean decides. Sam with all that power flowing through him, not using it for anything except to fuck Dean. He needs a good fight or ten, he needs blood on his big, beautiful hands. The hellhounds were fun, but Sam is a born killer, and Dean has been keeping him from his calling, too selfish to share his terror with the rest of the damned world.

So he throws his gladiator back into the arena, a day of full combat against one titan after another. By the seventh and last fight, it's clear that Sam is running low on juice.

He's about to become a chewing toy for Dean's favorite Cyclops. Sam has a sword this time and proper armor to boot. He doesn't need those things, not with his natural talents, but he was a good boy last night, drank all his demon blood without putting up a fuss, so Dean felt like rewarding him.

There's blood pouring from Sam's nose, and his brother spends more of this fight clutching at his head, trying to keep his powers from wavering, than he does focusing on the behemoth stomping around in the arena with him. Dean honestly expects him to use the sword—it would be an easier and more painless way out.

But Sam is dead set on killing the Cyclops with his mind. Dean smiles into his wine glass, liking to think that his baby brother is trying to impress him.

Sam stands in the center now, tall and sure of himself, and Dean can feel the power sparking his every nerve ending. He's a stunning creature when he's like this. Thirsty for blood, both Dean's and his opponent's, and if Dean has been indulging as well, if he feels just a little more human because of the blood Sam's poured into him, it’s no longer something he's ashamed of.

Love is his cruelest discovery to date, and Sam is magnificent.

The cyclops swings his wide arms, and at twice Sam's size, his hits hardly register. Sam holds out his hands to trap the thing, then curls each of them into fists and pulls down, the monster clutching at its head and following his movements as it crumbles to its knees. Sam is shaking from the effort, but he keeps focused and the cyclops can't last forever.

He dies after a long cry of pain, scratching at the sand floor until his fingers are bloody stubs. Dean's brother just smirks at his victim. He comes out victorious with nothing more than a bloody nose.

As he raises his arm in victory, Sam looks like an emperor claiming his kingdom. Proud and strong and ruthless, all the qualities Dean ever dreamed of, and Sam is so, so perfect. He could be a leader more powerful, more wicked, more deserving of respect than anything Dean could offer.

This is his kingdom, it's true, and Dean had no plans of sharing. There was no one strong enough to deserve his respect, let alone his obedience. Crowley was a cockroach, a crossroads demon with delusions of grandeur. Dean was twelve times the demon his would-be master was. 

But Sam is superior when he gives in to his powers like this, and that's all that matters here. He was made to hold terrible strength, a cathedral to house a dark god who was still not enough to overcome his vessel. This is a master worth serving—and Knights like Dean, they were made to serve.

He'll gladly bow to the monster he's made. Together, they'll rule: the king and his knight.

_______________________________________________________________

"You were astounding today," Dean declares as he enters his bedchamber. "The way that chimera whimpered when you hardly even blinked at it. What I would have given to have seen your face up close, Sam."

Dean can see his brother curled up on his bed, but he doesn't say a word. Sam's shoulders are shaking, and Dean can hear a soft noise, but he doesn't understand it until he reaches the bed and turns Sam over.

"Sam?" he asks, brushing his finger over Sam's cheeks. The tears steam up and burn on his hand, but Dean doesn't pay attention to the pain, doesn't feel the pleasure Sam crying used to make him feel. "Are you okay?"

"No," Sam replies, shaking his head wildly. "No, no, no, no."

Dean tries to brush his hair away where it's stuck to Sam's face, and that makes him hiss. He realizes Sam is covered in sweat, that salt causing him to steam up as well, and shuts his mouth on a reassuring smile. It's clear what's happening here.

"Oh, it's okay," he promises, shushing Sam's hysteria. "It's okay, Sam. You used up all your blood, that's all. You're strung out. I can give you more. You'll be fine soon."

"I won't," he answers, his eyes still wild. He claws at Dean and then pulls his hands away, making a pained face. "I want it. So bad. I want it."

"That's good," Dean tells him. "I want you to want it."

"Brother," Sam replies, another tear streaking down his cheek, and Dean feels his eyebrows drawing together. He'd noticed the steam before, but he'd thought it was only coming from his skin. Sam is reacting to the salt, too. "Look what I've become."

"You drained yourself with those fights," Dean answers. "It was too much. We won't do that again."

"Did it on purpose," Sam admits, tearing at his hair. "Thought I could clean myself. Thought I could be clean."

Dean shakes his head, looking at Sam like a disappointed parent. "Why on earth would you want to be clean?"

"My brother hated me like this."

"I'm your brother," Dean reminds him, and he remembers the words Sam spoke at their first meeting, the ones that had enraged him so much. "And I love you no matter what. Like this. When you're powerful. Even when you're good, I love you."

"You're not him," Sam hides his face behind his hands. "You killed him. And now you've killed me, too."

"What are you talking about? You're fine," Dean says. "You just need more blood."

"I'll never stop now," Sam babbles. "Never stop. And you were right. I can't save you. I can't save you. You always saved me and I'll be here like this forever. I went too far. I let it go too far." Sam loses focus and starts rocking in Dean's arms. "Just a little, I said. I'll only drink what I need and then I'll stop, but I'm just so..."

Sam's words die as he stops to stare at one of the scars he left on Dean's chest. It'll be healed by tomorrow, but for now, Sam is looking at it like it's a steak. "I'm so hungry. So hungry. I just wanted to save my brother."

Dean is ashamed of himself, but he can't stand to see Sam so upset. So he strokes his brother's cheek and gently asks, "What can I do for you?"

Sam's eyes light up as he searches Dean's expression, and he smiles, but it's wobbly, something between desperate hope and utter abjection. He whispers, "Did you know you look just like my brother?"

Dean's eyes slide to green, and Sam sobs loudly as he reaches out to touch his cheek. "Let me pretend. Just this once, please. Let me pretend I can still get him back."

He leans in and kisses Dean tenderly, and Dean can't help that it makes his heart beat just a little faster. "Whatever you want."

All of the neediness Sam has been displaying in his lust for Dean's blood gets transferred into this kiss, and he doesn't break it as he pushes Dean down. Dean sinks back on the pillows, weighed into the mattress as Sam climbs on him.

He's never had Sam on top like this. No one has ever had him vulnerable like this, not in this lifetime, at least, and a part of him wishes he knew if it were true for his other life, the one he shared with Sam.

Dean never thought he could like letting someone else call the shots.

They're still kissing as they untie each other's robes, hands working greedily but not violently, and it's that absence of malevolent intent that makes this so terrifying to Dean. Still, it's how he knows Sam wants him to do this, how his brother would do it, and he tries not to wonder what it says that falling into this act isn't unpleasant to him.

When Sam's lips finally leave his, it's only to press kisses down his jaw, over his shoulder, as if Sam loves every inch of him and wants Dean to feel adored. And Dean hates him as much for making him learn those emotions as he does for the fact that he knows Sam is pretending he's someone else, and none of this sweet affection is really for him.

Sam reaches out to the nightstand and takes the oil, pouring it into his palm. Dean's legs shift open to make room for him before Sam even turns back, and he feels his cheeks heat with shame at how easy he's making this.

"So pretty when you blush, Dean," Sam teases. He brings the warm oil to Dean's body, the tip of one finger breaching him and stretching him before another joins it in moments.

Dean shifts at the sensation, unperturbed by the slight discomfort it causes at first. This is Hell; it's the pleasure that's unusual, or at least pleasure that comes from Sam pushing into him instead of him tearing it from Sam.

His brother murmurs something about making sure he's ready, how much he loves the way Dean opens up for him, but Dean shuts the words out. Tries so hard not to hear the tone, either, reverent and gentle, and none of the things Dean is supposed to want.

He wants it so bad, and he wants to beg Sam to mean it, to talk to him instead of some lost brother Sam is only pretending he is. But he keeps his lips pressed tightly together instead, doesn't let a single plea or sound of pleasure escape him.

Not even when Sam is three fingers deep and he twists them, finding a spot in Dean that lights him up so bright every fire in hell seems like nothing but a spark next to it.

"What's wrong?" Sam asks, cupping Dean's face and turning it toward him. "Doesn't it feel good, Dean? You always liked this so much."

Dean can’t exactly explain that feeling good is the whole problem. Not when it's Sam's brother who is supposed to be here and he's just an impostor wearing the right face. 

Sam leans down for a kiss, and as soon as Dean opens his mouth to accept it, his fight is lost. Sam wrings deep moans and soft sounds of pleasure out of him, his cock hard and desperate for attention before Sam is even done prepping him.

"More," he demands, and Sam laughs as he takes his fingers away.

"Yeah, okay," Sam answers. "I've got more for you."

Dean watches with a hunger that's new to him as Sam slicks his cock up, as he brings it to Dean's body, pausing to meet Dean's eyes with a silent question. He nods, and Sam sinks in, his dick huge and intrusive, but Dean's body is so wet and stretched and relaxed, so well-prepared that Sam's thick cock is able to slide all the way in with hardly any resistance.

He waits for the fucking to begin, for his gladiator to begin to thrust and take with violence and power, just the way Dean has always done to him. But when Sam moves, it's slow. Deliberate. He doesn't want to think the word, but there's no other way to describe the rhythm of Sam's hips as they roll into Dean.

Tender. This isn't fucking; Sam is making love to him.

"Is it good?" Sam asks, smiling like a happy boy as he rolls his cock into a spot that makes Dean's eyes flutter shut, makes all his breath leave him in one satisfied rush. "Dean, tell me it's good."

Dean shakes his head, turning his face away from Sam's. This is too much. Too much and Dean can't admit it. He looks back on the last few months and wonders when he let things go this far.

Sam's big hand cradles his cheek, urging him to meet his brother's eyes, and he tries to go black, or show teeth, tries to spit or say something nasty. He can't pull up any of that cruelty when he looks into Sam's expression.

All he can do is nod, reaching out to hold Sam's hips so they're just that tiny bit closer where Sam has pushed inside of him, as if that's the only place they're touching. As if every inch of their skin isn't the same, their blood the same. Sam has been taking Dean over drop by drop for months, Dean realizes. He's been losing himself to this for a long, long time.

Most of him can't remember why he fought it.

"Sam," he says, hand ghosting over Sam's chest, tracing the broken tattoo, ashamed of what he's done because of it. "Sam, I—"

"Thirsty?" Sam asks.

Dean nods. Even with how big he is, even with how good Sam is fucking him, Dean just wants more. More of Sam inside of him. He wants Sam to possess him, make it so his body can hardly contain them both.

"You can drink," Sam offers sweetly.

Dean shakes his head. "I don't want to hurt you."

The words are foreign on his lips, and he doesn’t know he's about to say them until they're out, so he has no chance to stop them.

"Go on," Sam says, baring his neck as he keeps his even thrusts punching into Dean, lighting Dean up. "Go on, I want you to."

His lips graze Sam's shoulder, kissing the skin there before he sinks his teeth in, breaking it open. The blood begins to pool in seconds, and Dean tries to restrain himself from taking too much, but then Sam gives a cry of delight, his well-controlled hips suddenly losing their pace and shoving hard into Dean with the force of his pleasure.

Somehow, even that manages to be kind instead of cruel.

He has no notion of how long it's been—it feels like centuries, like Sam has managed to drag this on for centuries—before Sam finally wraps a hand around Dean's hard cock and starts to jerk him just right. He pulls his mouth off Sam's shoulder to gasp, and Sam kisses him.

"Missed you like this, Dean," Sam whispers. "Fucking love you like this."

Dean can hardly hold out against that. He feels an orgasm beginning in him, not fast and explosive like all the others he's had, but building, a long time on the horizon before finally his cock begins to come, thick strings of white and Sam just keeps working and working him.

He feels so good, his mind is almost blank from pleasure. He isn't thinking as a name breaks over his lips.

"Sammy." The word burns in his mouth the way _Christo_ would, and Dean realizes in a moment of horror that it's because it's sacred to him. Holy.

He's too far gone to remember to keep his defenses up. All the walls that have been holding him together begin to creak and crumble under the weight of that word, and Dean doesn't get much of a chance to admire the way his saying it makes Sam lose himself, coming hard into Dean.

Everything is flooding back. All the memories he dammed up, with good reason, all of them are assaulting him at once. Sam smiling at him with gaped teeth as he runs around a cheap motel room in his makeshift garbage raincoat. Sam dead in his arms, their bodies kneeling in mud. Alive again, all thanks to Dean. Losing him to Lucifer, getting him back, the shirt he was wearing the night Dean pulled him from a fire in Palo Alto.

It upsets him. It all upsets him so much, and he remembers the last time this happened, too. When he was a demon and Sam was trying to save him, the way he'd tried to keep his distance from this hold Sam has on him, and how Sam wouldn't leave well-enough alone then, either.

He remembers trying to kill Sam, the single-minded conviction that if he can just get his brother out of his conscious he'll be free to enjoy his damnation. This word, Sammy, how he'd repeated it so many times as he'd chased Sam, trying in vain to wear it out, make it cheap on his lips so the sting of love and sanctity would go away. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

"I'll kill you," he says, reaching up to wrap two hands around Sam's neck and pressing hard against Sam's windpipe. "I'll kill you before I'll let you do this to me."

Sam just reaches up, takes each of Dean's hands in one of his own and pries them away as easily as if they were a child's. Dean isn't putting up any real resistance. He feels almost like he wants to cry.

"No," he says. "No, please, it was easy. It was so easy."

"Dean," Sam whispers, kissing him. "Dean, come back to me. Come back to me."

"I can't," he answers, and this time he knows it's true. Even if he wants to. Fuck it, Dean can admit it. He wants to be Sam's brother, anything to make Sam smile.

He can't, not with this Mark on his arm. He can never cleanse himself of it, can only disappoint Sam, failing time and time again to live up to Sam's faith in him, unable to restrain himself from the urge to kill. That's why he forgot Sam; this is why he had to make himself forget. Because forgetting was easier than remembering he failed, would always fail. 

Sam smiles, taking his arm. "You can. I have a way."

Dean's eyes widen in shock. "You can get rid of the Mark?"

His brother nods, and Dean shakes his head. "Even Cain said there was no way. He tried for centuries."

"He didn't have me," Sam replies, smiling as he touches Dean's face gently. "Give it to me, Dean."

The idea makes his blood run cold. Damn his brother to this instead of himself. "Never."

"You don't understand," Sam tells him. "Cain couldn't get rid of the Mark because it was his sin. It was his damnation. It's not yours."

"Then why am I in Hell, Sam?" Dean asks. "Why was I a demon? You cured me once before, you think I won't be one again? I'm a lost cause."

"You didn't kill your brother," Sam says, and Dean is about to ask what that matters, but Sam continues, "You can fix his sin. He'd already killed the only person who could save him, because he didn't trust his brother, he gave up on him. You never gave up on me, and I'm here."

"You're saying all Cain had to do was give the Mark to Abel?" Dean asks, almost on the verge of laughing. "That's a pretty stupid Catch-22."

"Not for us, it isn't."

Dean frowns, the darkness of the Mark still having enough of a hold to make him say, "You're trying to trick me. You just want the Mark for yourself."

"Don't really need it," Sam says, looking away, ashamed. "If I wanted that kind of power, you know I could have much more of it without the Mark."

"You're sure this will work?"

Sam looks him dead in the eye. "Do you trust me?"

Dean nods, and Sam takes his forearm the way Cain had. "Give me the Mark, Dean. Let's fix this so you can be my brother again."

There's a faint tugging under his skin, as if the Mark is _trying_ to slip over to Sam. Dean doesn't fight it, watches his and his brother's veins light up as it transfers, but when everything is said and done, Sam pulls his arm away, as scar free as Dean now is.

He hears himself gasp, and then Sam's hand is on his face, bringing him into a kiss.

"Sammy," he whispers, pulling away, suddenly realizing he doesn't deserve this. Not Sam's love or salvation or forgiveness. "The things I've done."

Sam takes his hand, and Dean realizes Sam is shaking. He's been shaking this whole time, and Dean just got used to it, let it get lost in everything else. "I know, Dean. I feel the same way."

"The demon blood," he says, scrubbing his other hand over his mouth. "I did this to you."

"Not all of it," Sam replies. "I gave in. I still want it. I'll still want it until I die. But I'm not giving up, and neither are you."

"But I—"

"Doesn't matter." Sam smiles at him. "We'll get past it. Together."

Dean nods, but then he laughs. "Hey, not for nothing, but did this plan of yours have an exit strategy? Because we're smack in the middle of Hell, and I doubt I'll be able to fool them that I'm still a demon for very long."

"Well, we could leave the way I came. Learned it from that coyote all those years ago, remember? Portal through Purgatory."

"Right," Dean says. "Let's get going, then."

"Or," Sam replies, and the smirk he gives Dean makes Dean's heart pick up, beating wildly. Sam's about to have a really stupid idea, he can tell. He fucking loves this kid. "Or we could try to set some of the things we've done right."

"I'm listening," Dean replies.

"That Devil's Gate in Wyoming. You can unlock it, can't you? I mean, you're still the emperor."

"That'll let more demons out than souls," Dean reasons.

"Not if you have them release the souls first. Not if we stand at the entrance, fight as many demons as we can until there's more than we can handle, and then we make a break and shut it behind us. Some of the souls might even rebel, fight the demons off to buy the rest of them a little more time. We won't get everyone out, but we'll save a lot of people."

"That's idiotic," Dean says. "Suicide."

"What's gonna happen, we die? We go to Hell?" Sam grins. 

Dean muses on it for a few moments. It's a solid Winchester plan. Headstrong and ballsy, and fucked if he doesn't like it.

"You and me against all the demons in Hell, huh Sammy?" Sam nods, and Dean smiles. "I've been looking for an even fight."

**The End.**


End file.
